American Colonial Art PDF

American Colonial Art is the sixth unit in the Colonial Period Arts course. In this unit you will learn about the folk art and fine art of the 13 American colonies of North America as well as the idioms, proverbs, and maxims from this era.

This unit contains sections on:

• Crafts & Furniture
• Visual Arts
• Settler Sayings

Layers of Learning is an activity-based program. The mentor chooses from among the activities in the unit to create mental hooks for learning. Some of the activities in this unit include:

• Sort art cards to find patterns and match descriptions to images
• Craft an “engraved” gravestone out of paper 
• Etch a metal pie pan with fancy designs
• Make your own portrait art with your body outline as the base
• View, discuss, and write about the historical paintings of John Trumbull
• Draw the literal meanings of idioms as you learn about their origins and figurative meanings
• Hold your own work bee to get a big project done
• Plus much more!

Each Layers of Learning Arts unit includes library lists of books, a family read-aloud suggestion, hands-on activities, printables and paper crafts, sidebars for extra learning, and tools to help you assess student’s progress and mastery. You can learn more about how Layers of Learning works in the Curriculum Guide or learn to teach art with the Arts Guidebook for mentors.

See Inside

Here is the inside view of a double page spread from American Colonial Art:

The curriculum is pick-and-choose, so you select which Explorations you would like to do out of the many choices.

Flexibility

This unit was written to be used for a month but contains plenty of content for many more weeks of learning if you choose. This is a pick-and-choose curriculum, meant to be cycled back to in the future when your child is older. As such, it intentionally includes far more material than you can possibly cover in a month. American Colonial Art is also part of the overall Colonial Period Arts course, the third Year of the four year Layers of Learning Arts cycle. If you use the program in order, it will take you though the art in chronological order, tracking with the Layers of Learning History units. However, each unit stands alone and can be used independently of any other unit.

Printable Pack

This unit comes with a downloadable Printable Pack that includes all the student worksheets. The printables can be copied as many times as needed for your family or class. You can download the Printable Pack from your receipt or from your account at Layers of Learning.  

Extra Resources

This unit comes with extra weblinks and a YouTube video playlist on the Colonial Period Arts Resources page.